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Private Lives

Harry Gesner in one of his designs, the Getty House, Malibu, California. Photographs by Steven Lippman.

Every day, Harry Gesner, 82, walks through his door in Malibu, takes a few steps to the beach, does a ritualistic series of stretches followed by a set of push-ups, dons his custom helmet complete with bird feathers, grabs his long board, and paddles out into the ocean. "I've been surfing all my life," he tells me. A World War II hero and self-taught architect and innovator, Gesner is responsible for more than a hundred houses and buildings. Known for his visionary style and renegade manner, Gesner was environmentally conscious long before it became fashionable.

Gesner's Eagle's Watch house.

Gesner is a native of Southern California, with deep roots.

"I come from an old family on my mother's side that had the original land grant for Santa Barbara. My grandfather Alexander Harmer painted with Remington and Borein and Russell, and they all had studios in his complex in Santa Barbara at one time or another. His works hang in the Whitney and the National in Washington, D.C." Gesner's uncle John K. Northrop invented the famous flying-wing airplane, which led to the B-2 stealth bomber. Gesner's father, an engineer, was responsible for the automobile supercharger. His great-grandfather invented the repeating shotgun for Winchester Arms. Gesner admits, "I know, the genes were all in line for me."

At 17, already a pilot, he was recruited into the army's 10th Mountain Division because he could ski. "I had an uncle who was Norwegian who taught me to cross-country ski, and then I segued into downhill racing. They were trying to get ahold of skiers. We were pretty rare in those days." The unit was an elite division of men expertly trained to fight in the rugged terrain of Europe and Japan during W.W. II. Eventually, Gesner ended up at the top of the list of volunteers for the invasion of Normandy.

The Cooper House.

Immediately after the war, he went to South America. "My father had been an amateur archaeologist, so I sopped up some of that and went down there to dig into pre-Incan tombs. At that time you could organize your own expedition and go into places that had not been explored before in Ecuador. All you had to do was get the right equipment and hire some people and go in and watch your back." After six months he sold his "loot" to museums and private collectors and decided to pursue his true love—architecture. It was while he was auditing classes at Yale that he had a fateful encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright. "I had been doing some drawings that he saw, and he wanted me to go to Taliesin West and study under him, and I just couldn't do it. I admired what he'd done and what he was doing, but I didn't want to be another little F.L.W., so that's when I made my decision to self-educate." Gesner gave himself 10 years to become an architect. It took less than half that time.

"I worked as a laborer, learning everything there is to know about building. I can pick up any tool on the job and work right along with the journeymen, and I learned a great deal from them … and by the end of five years I had already gotten into designing and building. And by the end of 10 years I was so busy it didn't matter."

Gesner can be credited for a large part of the unique visual culture that comprises the Malibu landscape. His Wave House, built in 1957, inspired the Danish architect Jorn Utzon, who went on to design the Sydney Opera House. More recently, Getty Museum architect Richard Meier insisted the museum restore a Gesner house on property it had acquired years ago. "Meier said, 'Don't tear the house down. It's an example of his work, and a very good one.' I can't believe he did this, but he did," Gesner boasts. "They put about a million dollars into fixing it up so it could be a center for their trustees. I was amazed I had designed it, it looked so great."

Currently, Gesner is working on a yoga center in the Colorado Rockies for yoga guru Rod Stryker and is busy with his new windmill design and an electric motor. "I'm converting a 190SL Mercedes bought brand new in 1957 into an electric car. I think the automotive companies were very remiss in not developing the electric engine along with petroleum. The first car was electric—did you know that? I just think we have to get away from petroleum and oil. It's leading us into a disaster zone."

Gesner credits his father and grandfather for having inspired him. "Never practice or invent in your field," he says they told him, "and you will come up with an original idea, and you won't be held to the academic confines of your education."

Retirement isn't even a consideration at this point. "I'm looking for a way to be reborn, you know, physically. My father, he was fabulous. When he was dying, he was in his 80s. He'd had a massive heart attack, and I was there at his side, and he said to me, 'Harry,' he says, 'I can't wait for the next experience.' That says it all."